(I'm aware that Uganda passed a law criminalizing homosexuality but it has nothing to do with any Christian organization from America or elsewhere. In any case that's irrelevant to this thread, where we're talking about the consequences of leaving Christianity. I predicted that folks would try to change the subject and you've done exactly that. Clearly I have powers of prophecy.)

AlexBP, why are you lying here? I thought Jesus does not like liars.

I did not change the subject. I was giving examples and explanations about those countries. I don't see me starting a discussion about homosexuality there.

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Like most atheist dictators, his reign was bloody, as he killed an estimated 250,000 people.

Oh, right because he did that all by himself.... All of a sudden all previously religious people in the army and the government disappeared into thin air and were replaced by those hundreds of thousands of atheists coming out of nowhere. Right....

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He had numerous Catholic clergy arrested or killed and he purged his government of Christians.

Since you are so knowledgeable about this you doubtlessly know that the Catholic clergy and church worked together with the Nazis and were heavily involved in the previous Ustasa regime's genocide program (going so far that catholic clergy men were in control of concentration camps), coordinated and enforced mass conversions and benefited from "requisitioning" of property of other religious groups and members thereof. Not to mention that the Catholic church played a vital role in the escape of numerous war criminals of the previous regime through the "ratlines" of the Catholic Church.

Does that justify all the loss of life? No, but it shows that the black-and-white picture you try to paint could not be any less correct.

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His successor, Slobodan Milosevic, largely continued his violent policies, but various regions of Yugoslavia had had enough and tried to break away from Serbia in 1991. Milosevic, not happy about that, incited Serb groups to start the war. His tactics throughout were famously brutal and he had a particular focus on cruelty to the Catholic clergy, as for instance when he ordered his troops to rape nuns before killing them. Anyone doubting the facts can read about his trial for war crimes and genocide at the Hague.

You do realize that the Serbs who did that are Christians themselves, right? But wait...they are not "the right kind of Christians", am I correct?

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So yes, the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was about religious differences, specifically the differences between an atheist madman who ruled by mass murder and Christians who wanted freedom of religious practice.

Funny thing is that all the parties involved in the war were religious. Those forces of the "atheist madman" were Christians themselves, just not the same brand of Christianity.

And I find it interesting that you seem so uninterested in the previous history of that region when your "Christians who wanted freedom of religious practice" did not care one bit about what others wanted and did just the same to all the other denominations as long as they were the ones who held the power in their hands.

Hm...I wonder if that could have something to do with all the atrocities and be a reason why those people hated each others guts in that region for so long... Food for thought...

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I'm sure that the thousands of Christians and others who have been arrested, tortured, or murdered because they refused to be atheists take great comfort from the fact that it wasn't being done in the name of atheism.

Dodging the point.

The point is that none of it happened in the name of atheism (as opposed to what you were and still are implying) and you fail to address this point. Instead you opt for polemics.

And I certainly noticed that you were quite selective in answering my post. Following your own "rules" of your OP I take it you concede the rest of the points which you did not answer to.

"A great deal of skepticism"? I don't think that refusing to accept everything posted on the internet is a great deal of skepticism. I would hope--perhaps vainly--that it's the normal level. But most of you folks are generally proud of your supposed willingness to question everything. Isn't it a little odd that you're now demanding I accept anonymous posts as reality?

This strikes me more as making a bug fuss over word choice than anything else.

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I have indeed spent an enormous amount of time researching the claims for and against accuracy of the Gospels and read many books on the matter from many different perspectives. If you'd like to discuss that we can do so in a different thread, perhaps in the moderated debate section, since it's not relevant to this one.

Please do present a topic on this. I'd be very interested in what this research was all about. I do hope, though, that it has nothing to do with the likes of Lee Strobel or William Lane Craig. Or for that matter, the use of non-contemporaneous second century historians as "verifications" that the events of the bible happened. Or that just because the bible make use of real places and people, that it must be true.

I'm not kidding. Just as long as those common fallacies are not being used, I'd like to hear more.

One of the most prominent examples would be David Mills, who tried to organize a protest against a faith healer coming to his town (in the US I might add). He knew when it comes to believers having their belief threatened, things can often get quite heated (Have a look at the mailbag for examples). Naturally he contacted the local police office for protection of the protest against the "Miracle Rally" of the faith healer.

He spoke with three officers. The first one told him he planned to attend the rally himself and would spit in Mill's face if he saw him. The second one flat out told Mills if anything happened and no matter who started it, they'd arrest Mills and his fellow protesters because they were trying to interfere with God's work. And last but not least the third police officer told him to go to hell, that nobody wants to protect atheists and he hoped somebody would bloody Mills up good.

Asmoday.....population of all Indian nations in North America in 1492 80,000,000 population in 1944 800,000......The christian nations that took over N.A. took 400 years to do it but the job have failed to do so. eraticating the heathens is hard work.

for every so called athiestexterminator there is many a christian that could put them to shame

Logged

There's no right there's no wrong,there's just popular opinion (Brad Pitt as Jeffery Goines in 12 monkeys)

Not finding it in one dictionary does not prove it false, especially in the case of the OED, which is probably more objective than most. I remember seeing "evil" and/or "wickedness" listed as definitions for "atheism" listed in dictionaries as little as about twenty years ago, and it's still listed as such in some dictionaries today, although mercifully the definition is now usually listed as obsolete or archaic.

The original claim was "the fact that a century or so ago, if you looked up atheist/atheism in the dictionary, it would come up as evil etc". I've now demonstrated that this 'fact' is actually a fiction, exactly like most of the 'facts' that you all are hurling at me. If Webster lists that as an "archaic" usage we know nothing about when it meant, and it could have been many centuries ago. I would be interested to know exactly which dictionaries listed "evil" or "wickedness" under atheism twenty years ago, though frankly I doubt that I'm going to find out. However, all of this is merely another attempt to change the subject. The video in question explicitly talks about the present and any attempt to discuss things in dictionaries from the past near or far is merely an attempt to avoid defending what the video says. So, once again, the video says that if I left Christianity I would risk being arrested and beaten. Do you or do you not have any justification of this statement to offer?

Your articles do not say that Christian organizations in America supported the bill that was introduced in Uganda. They instead talk about Christian organizations that opposed the bill. Which would tend to suggest that I was right. But in any case, as I already said, that's irrelevant to the topic of this thread.

I have no desire to defend the atrocities done in the former Yugoslavia or anywhere else, but the catholics were not killed simply because Milosevic was an atheist. The catholics joined and abetted Hitler in WWII, where a couple of million Yugoslavs died. This pissed off the locals. They're still mad. Again, I can't excuse or condone what was done, but it wasn't just because Milosevic was an atheist. There were more down the earth reasons.

Your claim that "catholics joined and abetted Hitler in WWII" is interesting. I wonder how you would reconcile that with Nazi actions in WWII. For example, after the Nazis invaded Poland one of their first actions was to have thousands of Catholic clergy sent to concentration camps. In fact, this happened before the mass roundups of Jews. In the particular case of Yugoslavia, the Catholic archbishop of Croatia, Alojzije Stepinac, was a prominent leader of resistance to Nazi war crimes and genocide in Yugoslavia, at great risk to himself. He took direct action to save hundreds of Jews and other victims, while under his leadership many other Catholics also worked to save lives and resist Nazi rule. After Tito came to power, he had Stepinac arrest. You can read about Stepinac's history here:http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/jews.htmlSo certainly your claim that "the head Bishop had been a Nazi sympathizer" is flatly untrue and seems like a good demonstration of the old adage that 'no good deed goes unpunished'. I also recommend the book The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, by Holocaust historian Dr. Michael Phayer, which clears up a lot of anti-Catholic myths that have spread around the issue.

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And I'm sure there were atheists in there as well, but it was the muslims and the catholics and the orthodox killing each other for religious reasons that caused most of it.

The original claim was "the fact that a century or so ago, if you looked up atheist/atheism in the dictionary, it would come up as evil etc". I've now demonstrated that this 'fact' is actually a fiction, exactly like most of the 'facts' that you all are hurling at me. If Webster lists that as an "archaic" usage we know nothing about when it meant, and it could have been many centuries ago. I would be interested to know exactly which dictionaries listed "evil" or "wickedness" under atheism twenty years ago, though frankly I doubt that I'm going to find out. However, all of this is merely another attempt to change the subject. The video in question explicitly talks about the present and any attempt to discuss things in dictionaries from the past near or far is merely an attempt to avoid defending what the video says. So, once again, the video says that if I left Christianity I would risk being arrested and beaten. Do you or do you not have any justification of this statement to offer?

You do realize that just because the 20th century ended 12 years ago, that doesn't mean it began 20 years ago, right? 1 century is 100 years. A lot has changed. "Archaic" could mean anywhere from 1 century to 100000 years

Anyway, we presented evidence which clearly contradicted your OP. You just refuse to accept it, claiming they're "fictitious internet stories"Guess what? Fictitious internet stories don't make it on the news. Yet This story and this story made it on the news and clearly show how discrimination against atheism/atheists is occurring in the so-called "free nation of the United States of America"[1]

When someone says that they KNOW little or nothing about it, you claim they are admitting they don't have any evidence. That's called a strawman and it pisses me off. Evidence is all around you. Hell, Bush Sr. himself said that atheists shouldn't be considered citizens of the United States of America, since, apparently, the USA is a theocracy

So, "fictitious" internet stories, as you call them, are not relevant but stories which you'd accept as real (being in the news and all) are not relevant either? Is ANYTHING relevant?

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about here given that you've only linked to one story and that written by the "Michigan State Director of American Atheists". If you've got a report from a trustworthy source reporting on the events in that case I'd be happy to hear it.

Oh, and some people have said nasty things about you on the internet. Excuse me while a cry a bucket of tears in sympathy.

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And the relevance of this would be...?

The relevance is this. The video claims that Christian are only remaining Christians because we're afraid of being arrested and beaten &c... if we leave Christianity. I've asked for any justification of the statement that people leaving Christianity risk being arrested and beaten. In return, you mentioned that some religious people have said nasty things on the internet. That's not the same arrests and beatings, and you bringing it up strongly suggests that you're getting desperate.

Your articles do not say that Christian organizations in America supported the bill that was introduced in Uganda. They instead talk about Christian organizations that opposed the bill. Which would tend to suggest that I was right. But in any case, as I already said, that's irrelevant to the topic of this thread.

I'm a little perplexed. When one article is titled "U.S. Church Lends Help To Anti-Gay Ugandan Pastor", and another one has this quote:

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For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

and this:

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One month after the conference, a previously unknown Ugandan politician, who boasts of having evangelical friends in the American government, introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals, and, as a result, has put Uganda on a collision course with Western nations.

What part of that screams "opposition" to you?

I don't post things to back up my contentions without reading them first. Perhaps you shouldn't diss them until you do the same. Or explain in some more specific way why you think "did" means "didn't".

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about here given that you've only linked to one story and that written by the "Michigan State Director of American Atheists". If you've got a report from a trustworthy source reporting on the events in that case I'd be happy to hear it.

Like my last post?Also, why is the Michigan State Director of American Atheists not a trustworthy source? If said person was lying, theists would be all over his ass

The relevance is this. The video claims that Christian are only remaining Christians because we're afraid of being arrested and beaten &c... if we leave Christianity. I've asked for any justification of the statement that people leaving Christianity risk being arrested and beaten. In return, you mentioned that some religious people have said nasty things on the internet. That's not the same arrests and beatings, and you bringing it up strongly suggests that you're getting desperate.

I'm never desperate. Violent crimes start at discrimination and hate-speech. It escalates. First a person/group exercises "freedom of speech", as it is called. Then, since it is not stopped, the person/group actively discriminates against said minority. Then, when that is punished, said person/group actively engages in violent acts against said minority

So the best source you can give me is "atheistblogger.com"? Okay. Let's have a look at what atheistblogger.com says and what evidence he provides.

First on the estimate that atheism has killed 95,000,000 people. He gives 20 to 40 million deaths for Chairman Mao's regime in China. The Black Book of Communism gives an estimate 70 million, part of 94,000,0000 with a small margin of error for the entire history of communism, though being published in the 90's it doesn't include the most recent communist atrocities. The Black Book is famous for its exhaustive documentation. However, we should also remember that there have been atheist tyrants who were not communists. (For example, Alfonso da Costa, head of secret police in Portugal for 18 years.) However, I imagine that sum total of murders for that group is relatively small compared to the total for communists. So I'll accept the 95,000,000 figure for our purposes.

Now let's consider his tally of supposed theist atrocities.

The first example he gives is the An Shi rebellion, which he claims cost 36,000,000 lives. He links to a Wikipedia page which explicitly says that it almost certainly did not cost 36,000,000 lives. Oops.

He says that Genghis Khan was "an avowedly religious person". He links to a Wikiedia article which says that we don't know much of Genghis Khan's religion. Oops.

He says that "Total violence between Protestants and Catholics over disputes of religious ideology in the Middle Ages have been conservatively estimated at 14 million." He backs this up by linking to a page that says nothing whatsoever about the topic. Oops.

(Also there were no Protestants in the Middle Ages. Oops.)

He mentions Japan in the sixteenth century but his link is to an article that says nothing about religion in Japan at that time. Oops.

He claims that the Crusades cost 9 million lives. His link that supposedly backs this up goes nowhere. Oops.

He blames Christians for the death of 100,000,000 Native Americans, then links to a page that specifically argues against blaming Europeans conquerors for those deaths. Oops.

He says that the Puritans wages "biological warfare with smallpox-infested blankets" and links to a webpage which says nothing whatsoever about that. Oops.

(Also the smallpox epidemic had already spread across the Americas before the Puritans arrived. Oops.)

And there are many other "oops" moments on that page, but I lack the patience to list them all.

At the end he gives a "final tally for theism" of 2,229,074,100. Unfortunately for him (and you) even the phony numbers that he's presented throughout the page do not add up to that number. Oops.

So, are you still willing to claim that "theism has managed to kill an estimate of 2,229,074,100 people", or are you willing to admit that you got fooled by a bogus estimate?

I have no desire to defend the atrocities done in the former Yugoslavia or anywhere else, but the catholics were not killed simply because Milosevic was an atheist. The catholics joined and abetted Hitler in WWII, where a couple of million Yugoslavs died. This pissed off the locals. They're still mad. Again, I can't excuse or condone what was done, but it wasn't just because Milosevic was an atheist. There were more down the earth reasons.

Your claim that "catholics joined and abetted Hitler in WWII" is interesting. I wonder how you would reconcile that with Nazi actions in WWII. For example, after the Nazis invaded Poland one of their first actions was to have thousands of Catholic clergy sent to concentration camps. In fact, this happened before the mass roundups of Jews. In the particular case of Yugoslavia, the Catholic archbishop of Croatia, Alojzije Stepinac, was a prominent leader of resistance to Nazi war crimes and genocide in Yugoslavia, at great risk to himself. He took direct action to save hundreds of Jews and other victims, while under his leadership many other Catholics also worked to save lives and resist Nazi rule. After Tito came to power, he had Stepinac arrest. You can read about Stepinac's history here:http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/jews.htmlSo certainly your claim that "the head Bishop had been a Nazi sympathizer" is flatly untrue and seems like a good demonstration of the old adage that 'no good deed goes unpunished'. I also recommend the book The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, by Holocaust historian Dr. Michael Phayer, which clears up a lot of anti-Catholic myths that have spread around the issue.

I have no trouble finding conflicting information on the web about the complicity of catholics in this situation. But the truth is of little value in a world where folks are killing each without excuse. If the perception was that catholics worked with the nazis, then they will treated like the did whether guilty or not. And most people pulling the triggers will think they have a correct understanding of why they are killing.

However, I can find sources that still insist that catholics were involved not only in accepting and working with the nazis, but also leading massacres. I found a quote from a book called "Hitlers Pope", written by John Cornwell, who is described within this quote as a research fellow at Jesuit College and a devout catholic:

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While some Croatian Catholic priests were executed for refusing to take part in the massacres, there is documentation of participation by others. Informed American Catholics are horrified at Ustasha crimes and the implicit or explicit complicity of the Vatican and Croatian clergy. John Cornwell, a research fellow at Jesuit College and devout Catholic who studied Vatican archives reports in Hitler's Pope, “Ustashe leadership embarked on their massacres with a cruel and haphazard barbarism that has few parallels in history.... Priests, invariably Franciscans, took a leading part in the massacres. Many went around routinely armed and performed their murderous acts with zeal … . Individual Franciscans killed, set fire to homes, sacked villages, and laid waste the Bosnian countryside at the head of Ustashe bands.” (Penguin Books, New York, 1999: 249-254)

The history book you referred to was written in 2000. The one I'm referring to was written in 1999. So very different conclusions were written at about the same time. If the historians can't keep it straight, then I can't keep it straight. And if I can't keep it straight, how would the folks that thought they were wronged keep it straight?

So if the catholics can't agree on their role and I'm getting both sides of the story from multiple sources, which am I to believe. And if I can't keep it straight and I have no vested interest in the matter, how can people with guns and anger do any better a job. If the perception was that catholics were the bad guys, it wasn't because a bunch of atheists hated them. It was because a bunch of people who thought they'd been wronged by members of the church who hated them. If some were atheist, so be it. That it's not likely that atheists were in the majority is relevant. When the churches and state started getting along a few decades later there was a resurgence of religion in Yugoslavia, even as it was still communist. Atheists don't resurge churches.

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Do you have a citation for this?

In the more recent conflict, you need to give me a citation as to why you believe Yugoslavia was only atheists killing believers or whatever you think it was before I can know how to counter it. All I heard for years was ethnic this killing ethnic that throughout the region, and I don't remember any point where anyone said "It's the frickin' atheists!" So please refresh my memory with some reference so that I can either come to agree with you or counter your points. All I see when I look at the history of the conflict is Serbians killing Albanians and Croats killing Bosnians and vice versa. Every reason I ever saw or heard was either ethnic or religious, with most of the latter being between catholics and muslims. But hey, maybe I saw all of this on Faux Newz and I was misinformed. Lemme know.

Asmoday.....population of all Indian nations in North America in 1492 80,000,000 population in 1944 800,000......The christian nations that took over N.A. took 400 years to do it but the job have failed to do so. eraticating the heathens is hard work.

for every so called athiestexterminator there is many a christian that could put them to shame

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't have any idea what you're talking about. First of all, concerning your claim of 80,000,000 Native Americans, estimates vary but most are much lower than that. Second, while it's unfortunate that so many Native Americans died it has little to do with Christianity or Europeans or capitalism or the United States or anything. After millenia of separation, those living in America had no immunity to diseases from the old world. When Europeans arrived, the diseases spread and many Native Americans died. Unfortunate, to be sure, but regardless of who was involved the same thing was bound to happen eventually and it could not be avoided. Some left-wing historians have made up claims that the spread of diseases was caused by Puritans but that's false, see my previous post for details.

Further, I find it strange that anyone would attempt to blame U.S. government action on theists. Aren't folks on this board constantly claiming that America was not founded as a Christian nation and with "separation of church and state"? If so, then government policy to Indians was secular, was it not? Further, at least in the case of that government's most notorious action, the Trial of Tears, the Cherokee victims were Christians. So that would be a case of violence by a secular government against Christians.

The original claim was "the fact that a century or so ago, if you looked up atheist/atheism in the dictionary, it would come up as evil etc". I've now demonstrated that this 'fact' is actually a fiction

Did you even read the response I wrote, or did you just quote it and ignore it?

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the video says that if I left Christianity I would risk being arrested and beaten. Do you or do you not have any justification of this statement to offer?

There have been a number of examples offered to you. Again, did you even read them?

You know, like most of the people here at WWGHA, I spend a lot of time listening to atheist podcasts. There's one topic that comes up almost ever time in every single one of them: the struggle with trying to figure out whether to tell friends, family members, and/or colleagues about whether or not you're an atheist because there are so many risks involved with it. It's frequently referred to as "coming out", and for good reason -- we face a lot of the same potential consequences as gays do when they do the same thing.

Some people really don't face any risks by being openly atheist, and as I said before and will say again: if you truly believe that you would be one of them, then more power to you. Most of us, however, are not so fortunate.

« Last Edit: February 20, 2011, 03:15:07 PM by pianodwarf »

Logged

[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

Asmoday.....population of all Indian nations in North America in 1492 80,000,000 population in 1944 800,000......The christian nations that took over N.A. took 400 years to do it but the job have failed to do so. eraticating the heathens is hard work.

for every so called athiestexterminator there is many a christian that could put them to shame

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't have any idea what you're talking about. First of all, concerning your claim of 80,000,000 Native Americans, estimates vary but most are much lower than that. Second, while it's unfortunate that so many Native Americans died it has little to do with Christianity or Europeans or capitalism or the United States or anything. After millenia of separation, those living in America had no immunity to diseases from the old world. When Europeans arrived, the diseases spread and many Native Americans died. Unfortunate, to be sure, but regardless of who was involved the same thing was bound to happen eventually and it could not be avoided. Some left-wing historians have made up claims that the spread of diseases was caused by Puritans but that's false, see my previous post for details.

Further, I find it strange that anyone would attempt to blame U.S. government action on theists. Aren't folks on this board constantly claiming that America was not founded as a Christian nation and with "separation of church and state"? If so, then government policy to Indians was secular, was it not? Further, at least in the case of that government's most notorious action, the Trial of Tears, the Cherokee victims were Christians. So that would be a case of violence by a secular government against Christians.

The first example he gives is the An Shi rebellion, which he claims cost 36,000,000 lives. He links to a Wikipedia page which explicitly says that it almost certainly did not cost 36,000,000 lives. Oops.

Liar, liar, pants on fire

Quote from: Wikipedia

The rebellion spanned the reigns of three emperors, starting during the reign of Xuanzong and ending during the reign of Daizong. The toll of the dead and missing, including those caused by suppression and famine, is estimated at up to 36 million,

He says that Genghis Khan was "an avowedly religious person". He links to a Wikiedia article which says that we don't know much of Genghis Khan's religion. Oops.

Oops again

Quote from: Wikipedia

Genghis Khan's religion is widely speculated to be Shamanism or Tengriism, which was very likely among nomadic Mongol-Turkic tribes of Central Asia. But he was very tolerant religiously, and interested in learning philosophical and moral lessons from other religions. To do so, he consulted Buddhist monks, Christian missionaries, Muslim merchants, and the Taoist monk Qiu Chuji.

So we don't know exactly which religion Genghis Khan had... But we do know he had one

He says that "Total violence between Protestants and Catholics over disputes of religious ideology in the Middle Ages have been conservatively estimated at 14 million." He backs this up by linking to a page that says nothing whatsoever about the topic. Oops.

(Also there were no Protestants in the Middle Ages. Oops.)

Apparently the page which it linked to was moved or deleted. And apparently you're right, I found no evidence of protestants in the Middle Ages

He claims that the Crusades cost 9 million lives. His link that supposedly backs this up goes nowhere. Oops.

You mean the link that is then redirected to something saying "Sorry, the GeoCities web site you were trying to reach is no longer available."?Remember that was posted 3 years ago, some links may be missing. I added up the total of the crusades' death toll[1] and it's 85000. Note, however, that I didn't check every single article from top to bottom, as I hate history and there are 7(?) "main" crusades+a hell of a lot more "secondary" crusades so this number is merely a very small fraction of said crusades' death toll, considering some numbers were unknown and I didn't check them all

At the end he gives a "final tally for theism" of 2,229,074,100. Unfortunately for him (and you) even the phony numbers that he's presented throughout the page do not add up to that number. Oops.

Quote from: Author of the blog

Dear childish idiots,

Somehow some of you have managed to figure out that the end result total doesn't like up with (some) of the numbers listed. Some of you have gone so far as to indicate that children should be able to figure this out, therefore I'm less intelligent than a child. Permit some consistency then when I say that you are less intelligent than children because a child should be able to read the explanation I have provided over and over and over and over and over again in the comments thread.

Some of the numbers have imprecise figures, some of them I did not provide numbers for. This includes estimates of damage done by Catholic anti-condom lunacy, a certain fraction of deaths from vaccine-curable diseases in Africa in the last fifteen years, etc. For some of these numbers you have to actually go to something called a "book" for the end result. But, as I have already concluded that several of you are illiterate, I doubt that this word "book" will mean much to you.

I have a question. What point do you think you are making by saying "atheist dictators killed all these people"? Even if you are right[1], what does that matter? Are you saying all atheists are evil because of it? Are you saying atheists are amoral? Spit the marbles out of your mouth and say what you mean, boy.

He's something for you: perhaps the greatest figure in the history of liberty and democracy - Thomas Jefferson - was an atheist. So were a bunch of his peers in founding the American experiment. Some of them were xian. So what? It means atheists run the full spectrum of bad to good, just like xians.

I have no problem saying there are xians who are really good people. My catholic grandmother is one. But xianity does not make anyone good. Nor is it an antidote for being evil either. Alex, if you are being honest[2], you'll admit that. You will admit that there have been some xians who have committed horrible acts too. And all this bullshit about Hitler and Mao killing in the name of atheism, is just bigotry on your part. You are just trying to reinforce a lie you have been told. You are nurturing your own prejudice.

I really hate when discussions turn into arguments about body counts or whether dictator xyz was an atheist or what it means to kill in the name of a religion. It's a stupid, meaningless argument. "My dad is bigger than your dad". It too is easy to get dragged into those arguments. Avoid them if you can.

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't have any idea what you're talking about. First of all, concerning your claim of 80,000,000 Native Americans, estimates vary but most are much lower than that. Second, while it's unfortunate that so many Native Americans died it has little to do with Christianity or Europeans or capitalism or the United States or anything. After millenia of separation, those living in America had no immunity to diseases from the old world. When Europeans arrived, the diseases spread and many Native Americans died. Unfortunate, to be sure, but regardless of who was involved the same thing was bound to happen eventually and it could not be avoided. Some left-wing historians have made up claims that the spread of diseases was caused by Puritans but that's false, see my previous post for details.

Further, I find it strange that anyone would attempt to blame U.S. government action on theists. Aren't folks on this board constantly claiming that America was not founded as a Christian nation and with "separation of church and state"? If so, then government policy to Indians was secular, was it not? Further, at least in the case of that government's most notorious action, the Trial of Tears, the Cherokee victims were Christians. So that would be a case of violence by a secular government against Christians.

So what's you're point? Are you actually willing to answer any of the objections that I made to your argument or just toss up irrelevant links and then run away and hide? Your first post claimed that "theist exterminators" killed 100,000,000 Native Americans. Do you any credible source to back this up, or are you just going to avoid admitting that you got caught lying by calling me an idiot again?

The first example he gives is the An Shi rebellion, which he claims cost 36,000,000 lives. He links to a Wikipedia page which explicitly says that it almost certainly did not cost 36,000,000 lives. Oops.

Liar, liar, pants on fire

Quote from: Wikipedia

The rebellion spanned the reigns of three emperors, starting during the reign of Xuanzong and ending during the reign of Daizong. The toll of the dead and missing, including those caused by suppression and famine, is estimated at up to 36 million,

Oops

Let's look at that Wikipedia article in a little bit more detail, shall we? You quoted one sentence from a certain paragraph but--for reasons that I can't imagine--failed to quote the ending sentence of that same paragraph, which is this: "However the numbers recorded on the registers do not necessarily reflect actual population loss due to the breakdown of the census system during the war". In addition, the source that Wikipedia itself gives for the 36 million figure actually says this: "Many historians have affirmed that 36 million lives were lost as a result of the violent event, but Fitzgerald and others have shown that this is incredible. Even if such a huge loss were conceivable, it would be naive to suppose that an accurate count could be carried out". So in summary, I was right about what the Wikipedia article said, while you tried to mislead by highly selective quoting. Further, the Wikipedia article itself was wrong and the cited source actually confirms my statement.

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Quote from: Wikipedia

Genghis Khan's religion is widely speculated to be Shamanism or Tengriism, which was very likely among nomadic Mongol-Turkic tribes of Central Asia. But he was very tolerant religiously, and interested in learning philosophical and moral lessons from other religions. To do so, he consulted Buddhist monks, Christian missionaries, Muslim merchants, and the Taoist monk Qiu Chuji.

So we don't know exactly which religion Genghis Khan had... But we do know he had one

How exactly do we know that? Wikipedia says its "widely speculated" that the he followed Shamanism or Tengriism (neither having much to do with how any of us would understand religion). Speculation is different from knowing. At least that's how I see it; perhaps you atheists have decided that anything you speculate is a proven fact.

That article makes no mention of religion other than saying that there were Buddhist monks in Korea who resisted Japanese invasion and that the Japanese sacked Buddhist Temples. However, the article that "atheistblogger" linked to about the traditional position of the Emperor was the one supposed to proved that the emperor in the 16th century thought himself a God, but didn't actually prove any such thing.

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Remember that was posted 3 years ago, some links may be missing. I added up the total of the crusades' death toll[1] and it's 85000. Note, however, that I didn't check every single article from top to bottom, as I hate history and there are 7(?) "main" crusades+a hell of a lot more "secondary" crusades so this number is merely a very small fraction of said crusades' death toll, considering some numbers were unknown and I didn't check them all

Using Wikipedia as a source, only if the numbers were available and only a few of them

If he said 9,000,000 and the real number is 85,000 then he was off by more than 99%, which is bad even by atheist standards. Even supposing the death toll was twice the 85,000 you found, your blogger would still be utterly wrong.

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And yet, that number remainsFunny how that works

What exactly are you trying to say here? First, if you're trying to say that one hundred million Native Americans died, the source that your blogger linked to is explicity devoted to debunking that claim and gives average estimates of a vastly smaller number. Second, if you're trying to say that Europeans were responsible for these deaths, the source that your blogger linked to is explicity devoted to debunking that claim as well. So why don't you be very clear about what exactly you're trying to say here?

I can link you to his book, which you could have found out for yourself if you had cared to look for it.

Why should you believe it? You don't have to. Keep your fingers in your ears if you like.

Again, you don't have to. It sure is easier for you to believe that all the atheists giving you examples just like this one or talking about their life are all making it up.

Making things up seems to be in the water around here. Consider the case of Archbishop Stepinac, already discussed. He waged a heroic resistance campaign against the Nazis, but some folks are wedded to the idea that the Catholic Church aided the Nazis, hence someone in this very thread chose to call him a "Nazi sympathizer or even worse". One such statement might be a mistake, but after the entire thread and many others--not to mention the videos that GII posts and the website itself--overflow with such lies you guys just lose credibility. However, suppose for the sake of argument that I accept that all this annecdote of abuse against atheists is true, and that the person telling it presented it honestly without leaving out any details that might affect how we interpret it. Where does that get you? Nowhere. Let's recall the basic logic of the video. The video maker begins by claiming that Jesus must be insane because of the gospel message of universal love and other things. He concludes by saying that the real reason why I'm a Christian is because I fear being arrest, beaten, &c... by Christians if I cease to be one. (Some have argued that the 'you' doesn't address me personally but instead a general audience, but that only makes the video's claims even more absurd.) The video would only make any sense if most or all Christians faced a constant threat of being arrested and beaten for leaving Christianity. As we do not, scattered once-or-twice-a-decade annecdotes would do nothing to justify the video even if those annecdotes were true. Further, even supposing that my religious decision was motivated by fear of being arrested and killed, I--as an American alive today--would face a much greater threat of violence for maintaining my Christian faith than leaving it. I have alreadly linked to a Washington Times article about the cases of Robert Freeman, Frank Lay, and MAry Allen as one example. One might also mention the eight Christian students shot while praying at Heath High School and many other incidents. If the claim that Christians are under widespread risk of arrest and beatings whenever we leave our faith is not true, then the entire video becomes gibberish and the maker, despite his smug attitude of intellectual superiority, looks like a doofus.

So, once again, would anyone like to defend what the video says about the fact that I'm only refusing to leave Christianity because of fear of being arrested and beaten?

I have a question. What point do you think you are making by saying "atheist dictators killed all these people"? Even if you are right[1], what does that matter? Are you saying all atheists are evil because of it? Are you saying atheists are amoral? Spit the marbles out of your mouth and say what you mean, boy.

Well I never said "atheist dictators killed all these people" or anything about that until others dragged the issue in. Recall in the OP I said that I wanted to discuss a particular video. Others tried to throw the discussion off with claims about, for instance, the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, saying that it was an example of violence by Christians, at which point I had to respond that the war was started by an atheist dictator intent on violently persecuting Christians and Muslims. (At which somebody tried to mitigate it with a claim that the Catholics collaborated with the Nazis during WWII, so I had to debunk that as well. Similarly Blaziken posted a non-sequiter claim that theists had killed 2,229,704,100 people based on a claim that an atheist blogger made up, and I debunked that at well. So if you don't want to have discussions about historical atrocities, don't complain to be; instead complain to your fellow atheists who keep trying to talk about that as a means of avoiding the OP.

But now, since we both agree that this thread should not be about historical issues, let's get back to what it should be about. The video claims that the only reason why I (or alternately Christians in the modern-day USA generally) only remain Christians because we're afraid of being beaten or arrested if we leave Christianity. I, on the other, believe that this claim is false. Who is right: the video maker or myself? This is a simple question, and one of us must be right while the other is wrong. Which of us do you think is right and which of us do you think is wrong, and if you choose the video maker then what justification do you offer?

My number was 80 million.........turns out its 60 million,,,,,,,,,,but genocide is genocide

I don't think I've ever seen four punctuation errors in one sentence before. Wow. Nonetheless, you still haven't asnwered my question. If you claim that sixty million Native Americans were killed in genocide, what evidence do you offer?